Georgia gun owners, led by businessman and State Representative Bobby Franklin, are seeking to repeal the State’s prohibition on carrying firearms in churches.

Current law lists places of worship as off-limits to concealed carry holders.  In Georgia, you can carry a firearm to protect yourself when you go the grocery store, but not when you go to church.  Like schools, Georgia law demands that churches be “Gun-Free Zones”, guaranteeing that when some crazy person someone with a grudge comes to shoot parishioners, they will have an unarmed, target-rich environment.

Franklin’s Bill, HB 54, seeks to change that.  The full text of HB 54 can be found at http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20112012/108249.pdf

Georgia Gun Owners, an organization that bills themselves as the “Home of the Georgia REAL Right-To-Carry Revolution“, are pushing for real right-to-carry legislation.  What they mean by that is right-to-carry legislation similar to that enacted in Alaska, Vermont and Arizona, where no government “permission slip” is required for a citizen to lawfully carry a firearm to protect themselves and their families.

From their website:

Georgia Gun Owners is organized as a 501 (c)(4) non-profit, non-partisan grassroots citizen organization made up of gun owners and lovers of liberty.  We do not endorse, support, or oppose any candidate for political office.  We do not call for the election of defeat of any candidate for political office.

Georgia Gun Owners seeks to inform gun owners, voters, and liberty activists in Georgia on their candidates’ positions on firearms issues.  The goal is to hold politicians accountable and achieve maximum liberty for an individual to defend himself, his family, and his property without having to ask government for permission to do so.

By signing petitions, postcards, letters, sending emails, faxes, making phone calls, personally visiting your state legislators, and contributing, together, we can take back our individual liberty to defend ourselves from the government licensing system that exists today.

We invite all Georgians, and anyone else, who believes in freedom, liberty, and private property to join Georgia Gun Owners.

Please join the “Georgia REAL Right-to-Carry” Revolution by contributing to the effort to take back our firearm liberty from the government of the State of Georgia.

So-called Vermont Carry legislation is really the perfect legislation when comes to regulating the carry of firearms by law-abiding citizens.  It doesn’t.  You don’t need to get the government’s permission to carry a firearm for self-defense.

Georgia Gun Owners is being joined in this fight by Georgia pastors and church leaders.  Pastor James Brown Jr. of the Covenant Baptist Church in Barnesville, Georgia, has made a video (below) about his support for this bill.  After watching him in this video, I felt like Pastor Brown was my kind of man, and that if I lived in Georgia, I’d be attending his church every Sunday.

If you live in Georgia, please contact your elected representatives and tell them you want HB 54 passed.